Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for optimizing the production of food and/or feed by generating a concentrated microbial biomass from the degradation of harvested plant material obtained from a monoculture or polyculture plant community, and providing the concentrated microbial biomass for consumption by an intermediary animal.
Description of the Related Art
Over the last 10,000 years, but most significantly in the last 100 years, a series of agricultural practices have been developed for the production of food for consumption by humans. These practices have culminated in today's modern agriculture in which a variety of plants and animals are grown and harvested for food. Modem agriculture usually includes the cultivation of land; selection, planting, and growing of selected single species of plants; irrigation of fields with groundwater from aquifers and surface waters; suppression of other plants that might compete with the selected plants by applying chemicals such as herbicides; suppression and control of various diseases and pests which attack the selected plants by applying chemicals; and the stimulation and promotion of growth and health of the selected plants by applying fertilizers to the fields.
Modem animal production practices usually include raising animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats for meat and/or milk by; grazing on rangelands including pastures, grasslands, and prairies which may be natural or may be planted or seeded with one or more of a variety of desirable plants, such as feed crops; or by feeding the animals grains and other plant products which are produced utilizing one or more of the previously listed modem agriculture practices.
While this modem agriculture has allowed for an unprecedented rise in the world's population, it has also resulted in serious environmental pollution and degradation. In the last 150 years, over half of the world's forests and wetlands have been destroyed so that the land could be used for grazing animals or cultivated for agricultural plant production. Much of the carbon which had been sequestered in the destroyed forests and wetlands has now been released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide where many believe it contributes to global climate change and global warming.
The modern agricultural practices have also led to the pollution of ground and surface waters with nutrients, pesticides, and other chemicals. This reduces and threatens fish populations as well as drinking water supplies. Raising large numbers of animals through conventional techniques also releases significant quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere where again many believe that these gases contribute to global climate change. Another practice of modern animal agriculture concentrates large numbers of animals in confined spaces. This results in the production of large quantities of animal wastes containing nutrients and other materials which in large concentrations further pollute the environment
The continual plowing and cultivation of the land and the widespread use of an increasing variety of pesticides has destroyed a large fraction of the topsoil that once existed. Modern practices also require excessive irrigation, which both depletes aquifers and increases the salinization of soils. As the organic fraction of the soil has been oxidized it has also been exposed to erosion, which not only depletes the soil but also leads to additional pollution of the groundwaters, lakes, streams, rivers, and even the oceans. A further consequence of this pollution has been the reduction of desirable fish populations in the waters of the earth. Eutrification and decline in water quality, destruction of spawning and nursery habitat, and continual overfishing have depleted many of the populations of the most desirable fish used for human food.
Accordingly, the present invention has been developed in view of inefficiencies, shortcomings and other disadvantages of conventional production practices.